For over 100 years, the common press release has been used by public relations companies and professionals to promote the companies they represent. The typical press release can focus on a new product announcement, the hiring or promotion of an influential executive or can be used to act as a "tarp" to cover the fall-out from bad press. Historically, the first press release ever, was submitted to help shield the Pennsylvania Railroad after a horrible accident. The release was delivered before the news media could react and create their own versions of what might have happened. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_release)

Using traditional methods of distribution, a press release's target audience is the media itself - those influential writers and news media outlets that would be capable of turning a "nobody" into an overnight sensation. By targeting national newspapers, magazines and media outlets, a company or individual would have a much better chance of getting the story distributed the way they wanted to (versus the media's interpretation).

Press releases are typically written by the company which the release is promoting (or who the story is about). A lot of critics have argued that this one-way point of view is misleading and contradictory to the types of honest stories that the media would report through research and interviews (Ya right, huh?).

Moving forward to the late 1990's and early 2000's, the Internet has played an ever increasing role in the purpose and method, with which press releases have been utilized. A new generation of "optimized press releases" has emerged, much of it due to the high-demand of SEO companies and fledgling online businesses looking for an edge.

Optimized Press Releases

So what exactly does an optimized press release look like? Before we jump to that, we must first define "optimization" for those not familiar with the art of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). It's basically building up a theme and authority for a given site, with the sole intention of improving that site's search engine rankings (results from a search query). This is done using a variety of methods, including using the keywords on the website, building incoming links to the website and others.

An optimized press release takes the idea of SEO to another level. During a time when most webmasters focused on optimizing the content on their own site, the first originators of the optimized press release had one goal in mind - to increase the number of "one-way" links to the website of the release's focus.

By optimizing a press release for the keywords and phrases that your website is targeting, and then submitting it for global online distribution, one can quickly build up the number of incoming links (backlinks) to their website. Of course, the more backlinks you have, the better you should rank for the keywords that you've targeted.